


Together Under This Roomful Sky

by dixiehellcat



Series: Tony Stark Bingo Round 4 [9]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Accidental Illness, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Confessions Under the Influence, Consent Issues, F/M, Flashbacks, Love, Medicinal Drug Use, Mention of Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Socks, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, with adverse reactions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29086746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiehellcat/pseuds/dixiehellcat
Summary: Bruce smothered an obvious snicker. “So, kick-ass doses of antihistamines act as truth serum on him. Good to know.”“Out!” Tony sputtered and flung a hand toward the elevator. “False friend, laughin’ at th’ invalid. Dishonor on you, dishonor on y’r cow—”Bruce was openly laughing as he left, but Tony slumped back into a heap, his momentary burst of energy gone. “I didn’t mean that,” he said mournfully. “You don’t think he’ll think I meant it, do you?”“No, he won’t,” Pepper comforted him. “Let’s get you to bed, hm? Let you sleep that bender off.”Fills the "Confessions Under The Influence" square on my Round 4 Tony Stark Bingo card number 4028. (required info collected below)
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: Tony Stark Bingo Round 4 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2009245
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo Mark IV





	Together Under This Roomful Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Time period, between Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron. As noted, other than Tony and Pepper, only Bruce is living in the Tower.
> 
> Bingo specifics:  
> Title: Together Under This Roomful Sky  
> Author: deehellcat  
> Card Number: 4028  
> Link (AO3, Tumblr, etc.) https://archiveofourown.org/works/29086746  
> Square Filled (Letter AND number AND prompt) K1, Confessions Under the Influence  
> Ship/Main Pairing: Pepperony  
> Rating (Gen, Teen, Mature, Explicit) gen  
> Major Tags/Warnings/Triggers: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Accidental Illness, Medicinal Drug Use, with adverse reactions, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Socks, Confessions Under the Influence, Consent Issues, Love, Flashbacks, Mention of Panic Attacks  
> Summary: Bruce smothered an obvious snicker. “So, kick-ass doses of antihistamines act as truth serum on him. Good to know.”  
> “Out!” Tony sputtered and flung a hand toward the elevator. “False friend, laughin’ at th’ invalid. Dishonor on you, dishonor on y’r cow—”  
> Bruce was openly laughing as he left, but Tony slumped back into a heap, his momentary burst of energy gone. “I didn’t mean that,” he said mournfully. “You don’t think he’ll think I meant it, do you?”  
> “No, he won’t,” Pepper comforted him. “Let’s get you to bed, hm? Let you sleep that bender off.”  
> Word Count: 3023

Pepper rolled over in bed to face Tony, and squinted against the morning light filtering in through the penthouse’s tinted windows. “How’s your back?” she asked.

“Good.” He looked remarkably chipper for the night owl that he was, particularly a night owl who had gotten slammed into a building by a giant mechanical lobster two days ago. “That traditional herbal plaster Helen recommended really worked a treat. Good thing she was in town. Another night or two and I’ll be right as rain—and ready to—”

“Ah-ah-ah,” she scolded and rolled away from him as he got that glint in his eye and reached for her. “No extracurricular activities until you’re medically cleared, Mr. Stark.”

It was unfair how cute his pout was. “Thought you were proud of me for not going straight for the painkillers. I’m trying to be all healthy, crunchy-granola man, be mindful of my aging bod here. That business friend of yours, the gal who runs the woo-woo wholistic website, she’d be proud of me, maybe I ought to warm up to her instead—”

“Gwyn has a man wrapped around her little finger,” Pepper replied airily. ‘She doesn’t need mine too!” She laughed as she beat him to the bathroom, her last sight as the door closed him scrambling out of bed in his boxers and socks. In her years as his PA, Pep had put his impaired ass to bed numerous times, and been around when he staggered out at noon numerous others, but somehow she had never noticed until they started dating that no matter how naked he got or how much hanky-panky they got up to, he never went to bed barefoot. It was a sweet quirk she minded not at all; her feet ran cold too, so snuggling up to his toasty ones was hardly a hardship.

They moved around each other getting ready for their respective days, in a new version of an old dance they had started years ago before either of them even realized it. Pepper was glad to see Tony really was moving easier than he had when he limped in from the Avengers’ last mission swearing loudly about some Balkan mad scientist. “What does madame CEO have on tap for today?” he inquired as he put on workshop clothes; he was dividing his day between upgrades on his suits and playing in the lab with Bruce, as he often did when the Avengers had completed a mission and disassembled, the others going their separate ways.

“Meetings,” Pepper groaned as she put her hair up. “All day. In fact, I have that teleconference with the new subsidiary in Wellington, so I won’t be home till late.”

He nodded and cocked his head in that way that told her he was probably figuring the time difference between New York City and New Zealand, to determine when to expect her. “Bruce is cooking one of his Indian stews, assuming we don’t get called out to fight six-story-tall shrimp or some shit like that. I don’t imagine whatever he’s making will have seafood in it…though on the other hand he might feel a need to exact some vengeance, so, who knows. Anyway, there’ll be some left for you, I’ll make sure of it.” Pep smiled, made him promise to be careful, and left with a quick kiss.

\---

As usual, Tony mainlined coffee all day, this time to be sure he was awake to greet Pepper when she got home. A good foot rub was one of her small pleasures, and one he had made a point of becoming proficient at. Once she texted she was almost ready to leave her office, though, Bruce insisted Tony start to wind down. “You said you were trying to turn over a new leaf,” Bruce said and shoved a mug into his hands. Instead of his beloved caffeine-laden elixir of life, it contained something warm, golden, and vaguely apple-scented. “That’s chamomile. It’s so mild even babies can have it. If you don’t have hay fever, it should be fine.”

Tony let out a heavy sigh, pretending to be put upon, but then blew that image by sitting down with Bruce at the small table in the kitchen on the team common floor and actually kind of enjoying the tea. At least, he did until he began to feel odd, perspiring and itching. “Um, Brucie-bear,” he began, then stopped when his speech sounded slurred.

“Huh?” Bruce looked up from some genome sequencing he was doodling on a napkin, and his eyes widened. “Tony, I thought you said you didn’t have hay fever! Your face, your lips, they’re swelling.” He nearly knocked his chair over as he scrambled to his feet. “Can you breathe? How are you feeling?”

“Weird,” Tony forced out. “Breathing okay. Just, weird.”

“Oh damn,” Bruce fretted. “I—damn. The med bay isn’t staffed, is it? I need to get you to an ER, stat!”

“Bruce!” Tony managed. “I’ll be okay. Not going to…” He had to stop to get air in past his rapidly expanding lips, and the effort sent a shiver through him. 

“I’ll call Helen,” Bruce decided. While he phoned her and hauled Tony to the elevator, Tony kept protesting as best he could: Helen was in her guest suite, probably asleep, since she was getting up early to head back to her lab in Seoul in the morning. She was, once Bruce roused her and explained the situation, as adamant as he, though. So instead of getting a little more tinkering done in the workshop before lounging in the penthouse and laying plans to seduce Pepper, Tony ended up stuck in the med bay while Helen grilled him about his medical history.

When she examined him, other than the hives that made him stuff his hands in his pockets in preference to clawing his face off, she found a small patch of rash on his back where he had put her plaster. It hadn’t itched, so he hadn’t noticed it. Bruce described the events just before the onset, and Helen snapped her fingers. “Chamomile. I’ll bet that’s it. A rare interaction can occur, between chamomile, and the myrrh in that plaster, and produce the effects we’re seeing here: generalized urticaria and angioedema of the lips. I’m not seeing any associated systemic features, which tends to confirm the diagnosis.” Bruce kicked himself halfway to New Jersey, but Helen assured him it wasn’t his fault. “The reaction is not something anybody could have foreseen. I’ve only heard of one confirmed case. If anything, it was more my fault for not thinking about it before I recommended the plaster.”

“Quit fighting over who gets the blame,” Tony managed to interrupt. “Just gimme something so my lips stop looking like Jessica Rabbit’s.”

Helen obliged him with a horse-sized injection of Benadryl to smack down the swelling and itch, and a week’s worth of prednisone pills to reduce the inflammation and make sure his breathing was not impacted (even with the arc reactor gone, his lungs were still sensitive and needed extra consideration). Suitably humiliated, Tony thanked her and apologized, and got up to head out, only to find his legs weren’t inclined to cooperate. Bruce, thankfully, was willing to help him along, albeit with a good-natured gripe about how much easier this would be if the big guy would come out when called. Feeling better by the minute, Tony patted him and assured him he was doing a stellar job all by himself.

\---

Pepper scowled at her phone as she got into the tower’s private elevator. “JARVIS, where is Tony? He hasn’t answered my last two texts.”

“Sir is en route from the medical floor to the penthouse, assisted by Dr. Banner. Please do not panic, Miss Potts; the situation is under control.”

“What situation?” Fortunately, as JARVIS quickly caught her up, it really wasn’t a crisis. It was a sad irony, though, that the one time Tony was honestly trying to go healthy, it came back to bite him.

Pepper let herself into their suite to find Bruce standing in the middle of the living room with both hands laced in his curly hair. “Pepper!” he gulped. “Um, I can explain.”

“Don’t worry, JARVIS already did,” she replied with a fond smile. “Thank you for riding herd on him. I can take it from here. Where is he?”

Bruce’s tense shoulders relaxed, but he still looked mildly distressed. “Over here. I got him as far as the couch and he, ah, zonked out. I’d probably have to hulk out to carry him any farther, and that might not have good results for your décor.” Pepper peered over the back of the couch and saw Tony lying limp with his mouth slightly open and a small occasional snore coming out. The only visible sign of his ordeal was some pink blotches scattered around on his face. “The Diphenhydramine injection kind of knocked him for a loop. He babbled all the way up here, telling me how much better I was at helping a drunk guy than an old boyfriend of his that just tossed him over his shoulder and carried him home from the bar.”

As Bruce handed over Tony’s medication (with directions, since as stoned as her man was, there was no way he would remember Helen’s orders), the lump on the sofa stirred. “Bruuuce!” Tony cheered. “You stayed! You’re such a good friend. I c’n count the number of those I’ve had on my hands an’ have fingers left…” He held his hands up in front of his face and turned them this way and that, squinting. “Maybe. Looks like I grew some extra ones? Fifteen, sixteen…Huh. Anyway, yeah, you’re the best, Doctor Banner sir. So nice t’be able to talk…not have to dumb stuff down, not that that’s most people’s fault, but, yeah, thank you.”

Bruce flushed. “Uh, you’re welcome. Tony. You’re a good friend to me too. I, ah, I really appreciate you.”

Tony grinned a huge goofy grin, and that was when he spotted Pepper. “Pep! Pep-pep-pep. Love of my life. I di’nt blow myself up this time, I promise I didn’t. Bruce an’ Helen can vouch for me.”

“I know. JARVIS filled me in. How are you feeling?” 

“Hot ‘n’ sweaty. An’ drunk. Really drunk. Like, frat-party wasted drunk, but without even havin’ had the dubious fun of the frat party.” Pepper perched on the sofa beside him, and his face softened. “I miss you so much when you’re not here,” he blurted. “Like, when you’re on the other side of the world, of course, but even when you’re just downstairs. I know you work so hard, and I owe you for that, more than I could ever pay you back—you’re amazing, you’re more of a superhero than me an’ my ol’ suit are. You’re my hero, you know…that…” His eyes widened almost comically and he put his hands over his mouth. “Oops,” he mumbled behind his fingers.

Behind her, Bruce smothered an obvious snicker. “So, kick-ass doses of antihistamines act as truth serum on him. Good to know.”

“Out!” Tony sputtered and flung a hand toward the elevator. “False friend, laughin’ at th’ invalid. Dishonor on you, dishonor on y’r cow—”

Bruce was openly laughing as he left, but Tony slumped back into a heap, his momentary burst of energy gone. “I didn’t mean that,” he said mournfully. “You don’t think he’ll think I meant it, do you?”

“No, he won’t,” Pepper comforted him. “Let’s get you to bed, hm? Let you sleep this bender off.”

Tony hummed and fumbled around feeling his face. “Do I still look like a drunk plastic surgeon shot my lips fulla silicone?” he mumbled as Pepper helped him to his feet and into the bedroom. “Felt like I coulda pulled a dent out of a Ferrari hood.” She reassured him that he looked quite normal, and he flopped on his back on the bed with an oof. “I’m a mess. You’re so—so assembled, all the time, and me, I’m disassembled. Bits an’ pieces, all over the damn place. Dunno why you put up with me.”

“Because you are my mess.” Briefly Pepper pondered whether getting him into the shower was a viable option, but decided against it—he was fading fast. “Can you help me get you undressed?”

A grunt was her only response, so she went to work with the ease of long practice. In a few moments Tony was down to boxers and socks. Mindful of his earlier complaints, she sat on the foot of the bed, pulled one of his feet into her lap and started to peel it free, only to be startled when he protested drowsily. “No, no, leave ‘em…”

“Are you sure? You said you felt hot, a minute ago.”

“Got to. Can’t sleep barefoot anymore, ‘specially not now, with you. Don’t wanna…wake you up again an’ scare you…”

Pepper frowned, a little pang in her heart at the thought Tony still felt guilty about that incident with the suit, back in Malibu. She thought they had settled that, just a few minutes after it happened. “I don’t understand, Tony. Why would your being barefoot scare me?”

“S’not that,” he said quietly. “The cave…Was so cold in there, I figured I’d die with cold feet. When I came home, I woke up one night, my feet were stickin’ out from under the covers and I flipped out. Wrecked my closet, once I stopped shakin’ long enough, lookin’ for the thickest socks I owned—ended up with those smart-wool ones you bought me that time back in ’06 when I went to the AI conference in Zermatt, like you thought I was actually gonna ski, and I came back an’ I’d spent the whole week drinking an’, um, being, dissolute, I guess, but I didn’t have the heart to tell you the ski stuff never saw snow except out my suite window? But they were so damn _warm_ , that night, and I could finally sleep without…being back in that fuckin’ cave again…”

Without her conscious intent, Pepper’s hands found Tony’s feet again, but this time began to gently rub and knead them. No wonder she hadn’t noticed, before Afghanistan. In fact, now that she thought about it, she knew she had seen him barefoot, on the beach, around his pool, countless other times in other places, but all before that fateful trip, and never after. “You never told me,” she said, making certain it didn’t come out in an accusatory tone. 

Tony’s attempted shrug ended up more a feeble flap of his arms. “No reason to dump on you at the time,” he muttered, “an’ then we started dating and…” He let out a small huff. “I got too attached, too fast, and I…wanted you to think I was strong, I guess? That I could handle my business. That took a shot to the ass pretty quickly, though, anyway, so might as well have come clean to start with before I got…ideas…’bout us…” He trailed off into mumbles, and was silent long enough that Pepper thought he had dozed off again; then he roused and growled, “I _hate_ this…feels like something’s in my head _making_ me talk…”

His voice wavered, and Pepper was struck by unwelcome memories of her own, of Aldrich Killian’s jeering face, and the flames of Extremis at her fingertips. As far as she had shoved it into a back corner of her mind, she did know how horrible it felt to have your body act against your will. “Tony,” she said carefully, “if you want, I’m…perfectly okay with this conversation never having happened.”

A cracked little laugh replied. “Nah, you aren’t,” Tony said, and he was right. She had never pushed him about those awful months, and he had let a little out, what he could, when he could; but she still hoped he would concede and go to a therapist, someone trained, as she was not, to help him work through his pain. “At least it’s you. I trust you with everything, always have. Anybody a billionaire trusts with their social security number…’n’ their heart…You found that, anyway, I didn’t even know where it was…”

Pepper couldn’t decide if she’d rather cry or slap him. Instead, she just kissed his knee and said, “Well, I’m glad you told me about this. I admit I was starting to wonder if you had webbed alien feet you were trying to hide.”

That sparked a dopey little giggle. “If I was an alien, you’d know before I did, prob’ly.” His drooping eyelids lifted with a fleeting flicker of alertness. “I did learn my social security number though, finally, so, one less thing you have to keep up with for me.”

“You did, did you?” she inquired puckishly. “And what is it?”

His mouth opened and closed a couple of times like a goldfish in a bowl, then he shook his head. “You’re bein’ mean to the impaired too,” he whined. “All my brain cells took the night off. Teeny weeny DO NOT DISTURB signs danglin’ off their synapses. No can do.”

This time Pepper did allow herself a laugh, and patted his foot. “I’m going to clean up and get ready for bed, I’ll be right back.”

“Mmm. Motivation to stay awake.” 

“I doubt that.” She helped him scoot under the covers, then turned toward the bathroom. “Pep?” he called faintly after her. “I, um…”

A glance back over her shoulder showed him waving his hands and clearly trying to formulate something, most likely some apology for what he perceived as weakness. “You’re keeping my feet warm too, you know,” she said and headed for the bath, comforted by the small smile he gave in reply.

As expected, by the time she washed up and threw on some sleep shorts and one of Tony’s old t-shirts, he was dead to the world. Pepper slid into bed beside him, wound her feet around his wool-clad ones, and followed him into warm sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> For my peeps on discord who heard me talk about writing a fic about socks for this fill, and wondered how in the world that was gonna work, here ya go. lol
> 
> Inspired by my dear pal sreppub, and specifically one of her sketches of Tony and Pepper getting busy. We met, basically, when I posted a comment about the fact that as porny as the drawing was, it was softened by among other things the fact that Tony was stark (hee) naked EXCEPT for socks. She admitted she didn't like drawing feet, so of course I immediately had to cough up a headcanon to explain it in-verse, said headcanon being that Tony's feet had always been cold in the caves of Afghanistan and left him unable to bear having cold feet afterward. 
> 
> This was supposed to be short and fluffy, but really, with that birth, how was it gonna be. Also, Tony wouldn't let up about feeling violated, which reminded Pepper of IM3, so that ended up in there too. Helen's comments about the rare allergic reaction are completely accurate btw. And yes, Pepper's business acquaintance Gwyn is exactly who you think she is. lol.
> 
> Title from a poem called, yes, Cold Feet. https://www.poemhunter.com/poems/Cold/page-1/9482741/


End file.
